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REVIEW: Burger Theory

Since the demolition of the beloved Coopers Bar and cafeteria at Flinders, every veteran student who remembers how crowded the food areas can get was a little pensive about the idea of wedging basically all of the Flinders campus into the tiny humanities courtyard around lunch hours. The idea of food trucks becoming our main source of sustenance throughout the day became absurd, and we all dreaded the imagined stretched lines and ‘SOLD OUT’ signs right when your stomach is snarling madly and you have a tute within the next 20 minutes.

Fortunately though, the new Flinders Laneway has becoming a relaxed sigh for those fears. Tucked away neatly to the side of the humanities courtyard, it provides enough space so that students scurrying to class late don’t have to dodge lines and crowds. The food trucks are lined to the left of the laneway, while the right provides spaces for seating and tables, as well as a refurnished space indoors. The food trucks themselves are varied in type so it would be hard to not find something you’d like, and the turnover seems to be at a reasonable pace, as the longest I have been left waiting has only been ten to fifteen minutes during the busy lunchtime hours.

One cuisine that has undoubtedly become a popular vehicle for students has been the Burger Theory food truck. Situated as the first truck (heading out from the library direction) there has always been a line of hungry and eager students clutching plastic beeping alarms, awaiting their food. The main burgers do not actually have names, and instead use the codes ‘Burger 1’ or ‘Burger 2’, which makes it simple and concise when trying to shout your order out over hundreds of students chatting. I decided to sample Burger 1, which in a meal (fries and drink) was around $16. My first impression (as a rather hard burger connoisseur) was holy shit.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes these burgers so good. A good place to start would be the meat itself; a generous patty of juicy Angus beef which seems to be always cooked to a medium-rare standard. Most burger buns are so bready that they strangle and fight with the taste of the meat, leading to that gluggy marriage of bread and meat threatening to choke you at family BBQs. Burger Theory buns, however, are sourced from the popular Japanese bakery Breadtop, which gives them a delicious soft fluffy taste that has an impressive shiny glaze. The rest of the burger is topped with lettuce, tomato, American cheese (which has been appreciatively melted onto the bun rather than slapped on) and the mysterious ‘Truck Sauce’ which stands out just enough to give the burger a delicious creamy tang, but not enough to overpower.

The fries are the standard golden crunchy heart attack you’d want them to be, and after everything was finished, for probably the first time ever regarding food on campus I was actually full, and remained satisfied till the evening. I recommend Burger Theory to anyone studying a long hard day in need of a mid-day meal (med students, crawl on down!) as this is no little snack.

Delicious and hopefully around for a long time, Burger Theory is like having amazing sex in public: naughty to do it, shouldn’t be doing it, but holy shit — it’s so good you don’t care.